


Nonviolence

by IreneSpring



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Character Study, Danny Concannon (referenced), F/F, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23759041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneSpring/pseuds/IreneSpring
Summary: Kate Harper doesn't consider herself a violent person, but the lingering effects of Danny on C.J.'s mental state might change that. Not as dark as it sounds, it's honestly mostly fluff. Rated teen for mentioning wanting to harm another person and references to emotional abuse.
Relationships: C. J. Cregg/Kate Harper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Nonviolence

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a new thing! That's fun! Anyway I got a lovely response to the last one (love you guys). Extra shout out to the person who made a Twitter thread reacting to my last C.J./Kate fic, it made my week. Sorry this is so late but school is an annoyance.

Kate Harper didn’t consider herself a violent person. Odd, given her choice of profession, but she was gratified by the fact that she had always enjoyed her Deputy NSA job more than any field work she had had to do. She didn’t enjoy violence. Didn’t seek it out. She’d had colleagues, hell, she’d had husbands who did, but she didn’t. And she always felt that made her a fundamentally good person. It was a shame though, how even the longest and most important streaks must end.

Sometimes, perhaps too many times than is healthy, picturing ways to hurt him is the only thing that calms her down. It’s what allows her to put on a brave and gentle face when her partner repeatedly asks her not to leave after the smallest of arguments. It’s what allows her to put a reassuring hand on C.J.’s shoulder when she starts talking nervously and frantically about moving in together even though they both know she isn’t ready. It’s what stops her from having several fist-shaped holes in her wall. As she hugs C.J. after one of her freakouts (which are becoming fewer and farther between, Kate’s noticed with not a small amount of relief), she pictures her personal armory and all the different ways she knows how to kill a man.

She’s happy Danny left California, because she’s honestly not sure what would happen if she and Danny were in the same room at this point. What do you say to someone who made it their mission to tear down a person you love? How do you stop yourself from tying them up in their own entrails?

She supposes she can’t entirely blame him. She had caused C.J. pain. She had betrayed her, left her just isolated enough that Danny could sink his claws in her. Goddammit, she had been in the room when Danny had showed up to take her on the fateful walk that would end up as the pillar of C.J.’s fears. She could have said something, done something, she could have at least given the woman a damn shoulder pat once and awhile. It kills her to hear C.J. talk about how she doesn’t deserve the small courtesies Kate gives her --making her famous blueberry pancakes, putting on C.J.’s favorite music in the car-- when she knows those things will never mean as much as just one simple “I’m still your family” two years ago. She had asked her if she was fine once, and by then it was already too late.

Perhaps what has been keeping Danny alive is the small signs that C.J.’s getting better. She’s joking more, actually taking her anxiety pills without needing monitoring, sleeping better, and starting to lose the perpetual signs of stress. They’ve actually had arguments. Real, two sided, petty arguments. Kate never thought she would savor arguments about the kind of dishwasher they should buy when/if they move in together, but the fact that C.J. wasn’t afraid to argue was almost as excellent as the fact that C.J. had prepared a three page position paper on why her preferred dishwasher was better. They go to amusement parks, and mini golf, and snipe about politics while they do it (C.J. is still not over Kate voting for Vinick, who is still, in Kate’s mind, one of the most formidable candidates of the century, and she will go to her grave thinking that). They spend late nights talking. She’s learned that C.J. can spend hours shopping for a new necklace, that her first boyfriend was a punk rocker in her grade, that she is very afraid of snakes, that she got fired from her pre-Bartlet campaign job for yelling at a famous Hollywood producer, and that she learned to cook exactly one entree just to spite the false choice between a career and cooking skills.

In addition to her joy of her girlfriend finally starting to thrive, Kate takes vindictive pleasure in the fact that she’s winning. Danny tried to train C.J. to be subservient and dependent, and she stuck a metaphorical pin in his metaphorical balloon. Every time C.J. does something stubborn, every time she laughs, Kate knows that somehow, Danny feels it like a punch in the face.

Sometimes, to distract herself from thoughts of murder, Kate imagines her and C.J.’s wedding. She knows better than to bring it up to C.J. until she’s ready, but a lovestruck girly part of her can’t help but think about it. She’s decided she wants Danny to come. C.J. will agree because she wants to bury the hatchet and doesn’t like holding grudges, but the real reason Kate will propose it is because the thought of it is the main reason she is able to avoid hunting down Danny and killing him in his sleep. One day, when America gets its head out of its ass and two women can get married, she and C.J. will walk down the aisle in beautiful flowy dresses, with their friends and family, and eat and drink and dance. And the cherry on top will be Danny sitting in the back row, watching as the woman he humiliated and tore down makes a public demonstration of her happiness.

After the ceremony, she imagines, she will go up to him --her hair perfectly done, her makeup exquisite-- and flash him a brilliant smile… and then knock his teeth out. Because its her fantasy wedding, and every story needs a karmic ending, and fuck it, maybe she’s a little violent.

**Author's Note:**

> I will probably post more soon (sooner than this last gap anyway) because quarantine means less things to do (gotta keep a positive outlook somehow), anyway, see you next time!


End file.
